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Food

Even a Man Who Sells Lion Meat Thinks Cecil’s Death Was in Vain

Anshu Pathak is no stranger to controversy, especially when it comes to dead lions. As an exotic meat purveyor, he's eaten his fair share of the King of the Jungle, and even he thinks Cecil went to waste.
Photo via Flickr user vjosullivan

You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone willing defend Dr. Walter Palmer, the American dentist who earned himself a bloody shitstorm of controversy when he, along with two other hunters, tracked and killed a beloved lion named Cecil outside of an animal sanctuary in Zimbabwe this month.

In fact, public sentiment is pretty much unanimously this:

meanwhile, at #walterpalmer's office. pic.twitter.com/uNXWsocGjI

— ᴊʀᴀʙʙɪᴛ (@jrabbitmusic) July 30, 2015

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Expectedly, there's no shortage of think-pieces on the matter. Vox's Dylan Matthews took the contrarian tact by arguing that eating factory farm-raised chicken is morally worse than killing an endangered lion such as Cecil: "Let's say you eat chicken. You thus cause massive suffering to anywhere from 1 to 20 chickens any given year. How does that compare with Walter James Palmer's killing of Cecil the lion? Well, you certainly inflicted more suffering."

I'm probably not alone in considering this to be specious reasoning (factory farm chickens might live unspeakably hellish lives, but they are raised precisely for that reason; Cecil was ostensibly being protected from humans who would want to kill him) but it does raise an interesting question: Putting aside the fact that he might have known what he was doing was illegal, why didn't Palmer eat Cecil, rather than skinning him, decapitating him, and leaving his carcass to rot?

On the one hand, meat is never the prize for trophy hunters, especially those who pay thousands of dollars—if not hundreds of thousands—for the privilege of killing some of Earth's most majestic animals for sport. (For but one example, see the case of Texan Corey Knowlton, who paid $350,000 to kill a black rhino in Namibia earlier this year.) But, heck, shouldn't a free meal of very expensive game at least be a bonus? American poultry might feel like they'd be better off dead, but at least their lives have some purpose in the form of your grab-and-go chicken Caesar salad.

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But the hundreds of pounds of Cecil carcass didn't feed anyone. Not humans, at least.

And it turns out that lion meat doesn't enjoy much popularity anywhere in the world. Yes, Zimbabwean president-for-life Robert Mugabe planned to eat a lion, among a zoo's worth of other animals, for his birthday earlier this year. But for just about everyone else, there are less expensive, more accessible protein options that won't threaten to eviscerate you.

The non-eating of lion isn't recent, either. In an 1891 issue of the journal Science, a short dispatch on African eating customs concludes: "The lion is eaten by some African races, but its flesh is held in small esteem." Even Maasai tribesmen—some of whom still consider lion-hunting to be an integral rite of passage—don't eat their quarry, reserving the mane, tail, and claws as trophies only.

But why? If people in China are willing to spend thousands of dollars on something as pitiful as a pangolin, people who spend two semesters worth of NYU tuition on their prey surely would want a rare bite of the King of the Jungle, right? Or does lion meat just taste … bad?

In search of answers, I reached out to a few hunters who have experience with eating cougars and mountain lions, but none of them wanted to comment for this article. And you can hardly blame them; hunting has taken a huge public relations hit this week, and those who hunt for meat see a clear divide between themselves and trophy hunters.

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Faced with little extant literature on the flavor of lion meat, I got in touch with an unlikely expert: an entrepreneur in Southern California.

Anshu Pathak is no stranger to controversy, especially when it comes to dead lions. He's the owner of Exotic Meat Market, a Perris-based purveyor of such proteins as wildebeest, puffin, and flamingo. When it comes to his lion selections, he's got stew meat, ground meat, lion ribs, lion shoulder, lion heart, and even lion penis priced at a mere $10,000—but at least it comes with a pair of testicles, too. (Its online item code is simply "LIONPENISBALLS.")

"Honestly, lion meat tastes like … lion," Pathak tells me. "There is nothing to compare it to." His favorite cut is the tenderloin, prepared sous vide.

Pathak's name pops up every few years in "News of the Weird"-esque articles about his exotic meat portfolio, which reads more like Noah's passenger manifest than your typical offerings from Omaha Steaks. Because he trades in atypical meats—some of which are quite cute before they become dinner—Pathak claims that he regularly receives death threats.

But he is adamant that the lion meat he sells in the US is 100-percent legal. (Indeed, eating USDA-approved lion meat is one of the many freedoms afforded to Americans.) Although he refuses to disclose the names of his suppliers, Pathak tells me that his lion meat comes from farms in the Midwest. "It has to be a licensed facility," he says. "The US government knows everybody who owns a lion. It's not done in some backyard."

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Despite the fact that he offers nose-to-tufted-tail lion options, Pathak claims that he is not trying to popularize the meat. "I raise the price, I make it harder for people to buy. So, I make it $1,000 a pound," he says. "Before I ship the lion meat, I call the customer, ask him how he will cook the meat, how he will use it, and why. If he doesn't know, I don't send it."

When I ask him for his thoughts on the Cecil controversy, Pathak grows irritated. "I don't understand—why do you hunt something and you don't want to use every part? Why are you wasting it? In the wild, in the broader sense, it won't be wasted—the hyenas and vultures will finish it up. But yes, it is wasted by man."

Waste is a particular sticking point for Pathak, who grew up in India. "When I was boy I always hunted for meat, for food. I never hunted for sport or for trophy, and I would never sponsor it," he says. "I don't like that idea—hunted down, and just left out there. It could feed the whole village. A whole elephant, for example."

While the many, many people heartbroken over Cecil's death might not have any interest in purchasing a lion tenderloin or pair of gonads from Pathak any time soon, he shares at least some of their outrage.

"That lion suffered for 40 hours before he was shot. That is not good. Clearly this guy is not a good hunter," he says. "That is pathetic."